Union Government approves green licence plates for private electric vehicles

The Union Government on May 10, 2018 approved green licence plates bearing numbers in white fonts for private electric-vehicles and yellow font for taxis.

Other decisions in the pipeline to promote e-vehicle’s use

• The government also announced its plan to allow youth of 16-18 years to drive electric scooters. As per the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, those in the age group of 16-18 years can be granted with licence for below 50 CC gearless scooters.

• The government is also in view of exempting e-vehicles from permits with an aim to promote their use.  

• Moreover, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways will request the Finance Ministry to allow the rate of depreciation on electric-vehicles at 50 percent as against the rate of 15 percent for conventional vehicles.

• The government is also considering asking taxi aggregators to have a fixed share of electric vehicles from 2020 onwards, which could be 1 percent of the fleet every year.

• Similarly, all public transport operators may also be mandated to provide 1 percent incremental fleet from 2020 onwards.

• There is also a proposal to bring down the GST on batteries to 12 percent at par with the GST on electric-vehicles.

Electric-vehicles fleet in India

• As per the estimates, India at present has 1 to 1.5 lakh electric vehicles and the fleet is projected to grow to about 5 percent of the total vehicles in the next five years.

• Of the about 24 million vehicles sold in India in 2017-18, electric vehicles accounted for barely about 1 percent.